


The Forest

by Anonymous



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Ambiguous Happy/Sad Ending, Angst, Animals, Blood and Gore, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Darkfic, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Death, Forests, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Love Triangles, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Physical Abuse, Rape, Sexual Content, Shapeshifting, Unrequited Love, Wolves, folktale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:42:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25802317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: It was said among the villagers, in the quiet northern town of Nibelheim, that there lived a monster in the woods.Cloud becomes entangled in the darkness.Darkfic/Fairytale/Horror AU.
Relationships: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife, Zack Fair/Cloud Strife
Comments: 41
Kudos: 142
Collections: Anonymous





	The Forest

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning: Rape, gore, death, abuse, and other dark themes, though not especially graphic.
> 
> If you're looking for a fluffy, feel-good fic, this is not it.
> 
> Whether the ending is considered happy or tragic may be ambiguous.

It was said among the villagers, in the quiet northern town of Nibelheim, that there lived a monster in the woods.

When the moon revealed itself in its pale entirety, sheep would stray and drift from their flocks, roaming silently towards black jagged branches. They simply wandered into the forest, never to be seen again.

Wealthy merchants and farmers of the village lamented the loss, as their herds thinned and their coin grew lighter. They dared not complain above a whisper, lest they be overheard by malevolent spirits.

Some believed it to be an auspicious occurrence; a sacrifice that would keep the crops healthy and diminish the harshness of the bitter winters.

Others saw it as a foreboding omen. They believed that a devil lived in the heart of the forest, though it was rumored that the trickster could only be seen by those he wished. They would whisper prayers before extinguishing their evening candles, begging for the demon to spare them, when the time came that it was no longer sated by the flesh of beasts.

With each passing year, the quantity of missing livestock steadily increased, as if the monster that took them grew hungrier.

Hunters did not fear the forest, at least, not while the sun could still be seen in the sky. The vanishing of livestock only occurred in the dead of night, with no carcasses to be found by daybreak. 

Though, even the most dauntless woodsmen dared not pass through the territory, on the day of the full moon.

* * *

Cloud Strife was small for his age, all of eight years old, when his stepfather first sent him into the black woods.

“Bring back enough firewood for three evenings,” Elias told him. His mother only averted her eyes, when Cloud looked towards them for assurance, and a familiar disappointment filled his own.

He filled a small satchel with twine, a water flask, and a handful of dried meat strips. When Elias was not looking, he slipped a little knife from the kitchen into his belongings. It was a bit dull, and usually used for cutting fruits, but insignificant enough that Elias would not notice its absence.

The villagers found the large trees in the forest to be particularly unsettling. Black as soot, with branches like gnarled fingers, and the limbs never bloomed, not even in the height of spring.

The biting winds made Cloud shiver, and he gathered his cloak more tightly around his shoulders. The ashen sky hid the sun from view. The constant crunch of gravel sounded below his own feet, along with the far-off caws of ravens.

Occasionally, he would tread on a twig which snapped loudly, and the sound nearly caused him to drop his child-sized axe.

Cloud would have to venture deeper in the woods, where younger trees grew, or he would have no hope of cutting any branches at all.

After some time, he came upon a tree that was barely taller than himself, its limbs just as skinny. The bark was brown rather than black, and a reddish sap oozed from where he struck it with his axe.

When Cloud raised his arms to strike a third time, he heard a pained cry whistling through the wind.

Startled, he turned around and darted his large blue eyes along the perimeter. The cry came again, sounding inhuman and human at once.

Though his instincts told him to beware the sound - _could it be a trick, the lure of a demon?_ \- he could not help but follow the source.

And what he found was no demon at all.

Nothing but a slender, adolescent wolf, its hind leg caught inside a metal trap and seeping with blood. The eyes were shut tight in agony.

It was a particularly beautiful creature, with a coat of silken silver hair, as fine as the sharp golden locks upon his own head. The jade-green eyes looked at him with a viciousness as he approached, a defensive snarl knitting the skin between them.

“Don’t be afraid,” Cloud said, though there was some fear in his own voice.

The silver wolf did not seem reassured. Cloud carefully set down his wooden axe further away, his eyes still trained upon the creature. Finally, it let him approach, and he set the wolf free from the sharp metal teeth.

Cloud took out his knife, which made the wolf flinch. He cut a long strip of cloth from his own shirt, and wrapped it tightly around the wolf's injured leg to staunch the blood.

“Do you want to come home with me? I can carry you.”

The wolf seemed confused, but it allowed him to scoop it up into his arms. It was lighter than he imagined, and rested its head onto Cloud’s small chest. He could see with its belly facing him, that it was a boy wolf.

When he arrived home, his stepfather was not pleased.

“What is this?” Elias spat in disgust.

The child trembled. “I found him. He was hurt.”

Elias backhanded him, and Cloud fell onto the wooden floor with a sharp thud. “I told you to bring firewood, not another mouth to feed.”

Claudia would not look at either of them.

Cloud crawled to his knees. The wolf nuzzled into his side, as if to comfort him. “Mother, please. It only needs to heal a bit. I promise to send him back afterwards.”

His mother wrapped her arms around Elias’ shoulders, resting her chin on them imploringly. With disgust, he shrugged her off him, and said, “You have one week.”

* * *

“I’m going to call you Fenrir,” he whispered, stroking his pretty silver fur.

* * *

“You're becoming too attached to that thing,” Claudia said disapprovingly.

Fenrir was not a thing. The wolf appeared intuitive, more clever than a mere beast. After the initial week of healing, Cloud bade the wolf to return to the forest, but it seemed reluctant to go.

Eventually he did leave, although some nights the wolf would return quietly, and crawl into Cloud's bed to share his warmth. He licked the tears on the child's cheek and whimpered in sympathy when he saw the bruises on his skin.

“I wish you could stay forever,” Cloud whispered.

The child often confided in Fenrir, though he was certain that the creature could not comprehend him.

The father he grieved for, who would never return.

The new father who did not love him.

The mother who once did.

Some days, they would meet in the black forest, where the wolf would lead Cloud to a pile of bundled and pre-cut firewood. Though it was a mystery how Fenrir granted such gifts, Cloud still thanked him.

Once, when Hans Bauer had pelted him with stones until the blood ran down his shins, Fenrir appeared out of seemingly nowhere to bite down on the cruel boy's hand.

Hans shrieked in pain. Fenrir was gone as quickly as he came. Everyone blamed Cloud, and screamed at him until he ran out of their sight.

The next morning, Hans was found in his bed, cold and still, with black fluid spilling out of his open mouth. His teeth looked sharper in death.

* * *

When Cloud turned twelve years of age, a new family moved into the house next to them. The son was two summers older than him, and overly friendly.

He ignored the older boy at first, being unaccustomed to such overtures. The town children had lured him in with kindness before. And now, they called him _witch_.

Zack was persistent, however. He charmed Cloud with genuine kindness, and they eventually became the best of friends. He was everything Cloud was not - cheerful, confident, strong. 

And he had mother and father who loved him.

He never had a friend before.

Fenrir had grown taller far more quickly than Cloud did, though they were now the same size. Claudia and Elias tolerated his occasional presence, if only because they feared the creature.

Fenrir did not like Zack.

He growled at him, causing the black-haired boy to stumble backwards the first time he tried to pet the wolf.

Cloud chided him. “Fenrir, be nice. He's my friend.” He wrapped his arms around the silver wolf, but it only jerked away from him.

He couldn't understand the look he saw in Fenrir's eyes. Wounded and furious.

* * *

He was fourteen summers old, when he had his first kiss.

Zack pulled away, discomfort etched into his features.

“Please, don't ever do that again.”

* * *

Fenrir laid stretched out on the bed next to the young boy, nudging Cloud's soft blond spikes as he cried, licking the back of his neck affectionately.

Cloud never turned to look at him, nor removed his face from the damp soft pillow.

The wolf stayed until it grew dark, and then disappeared into the night.

* * *

When he was fifteen summers old, Aerith arrived to Nibelheim with her mother Ifalna. She shared an age with Zack, who had become instantly smitten with her. The girl was lovely, both in her shining spirit and her fair countenance, with long chestnut hair and impish green eyes.

Little by little, Cloud began spending his days in Zack's abode, rather than his own. The parents took pity on the boy, and treated him as a second son.

Still, they never spoke one word about his bruises.

Consequently, Cloud spent more of his days with Aerith as well. She was a kindly and effusive person, with a personality far more similar to Zack's than his own.

He wished to like her. He had come to like her, after some time, in spite of himself. The girl seemed as pure as nature itself, as if flowers chose to bloom underneath her feet as she walked. One turned to her, as sunflowers turned towards the sun.

Much like Zack had done, Aerith imposed herself on him in the most brutally cheerful manner, until he relented to her charms. The three of them were often inseparable.

But he despised the way that Zack looked at her. It was a manner in which he never looked at Cloud.

The look that had accompanied Zack's rejection was seared painfully into his psyche. The way it had made his insides plummet, and his skin burn hotly with shame and loathing.

Fenrir ceased to appear as often. The wolf refused to enter Zack's house. Cloud sometimes awoke at night to see the ghostly silver of its mane perched outside his door.

“We're friends, right?” Zack said. The look on his face had some unfathomable meaning.

The question cut through him, as if pushing a sharp blade into his chest. Yet, he still forced a smile on his lips, and nodded.

* * *

He was sixteen, when his house burned down, the flames licking into the air with a horrible heat in the black night.

The ache in his head still pulsed from the previous morning, when Elias had struck him so furiously that his skull nearly cracked. The headaches would persist for years to come, even after his stepfather was long gone.

Cloud still recalls the last thing he said to his mother. He remembers the tinge of regret in her eyes, after the words had left his lips.

_Why does he mean more to you than me?_

* * *

Their bodies were found, as blackened as the trees in the forest, among the charred belongings of what used to be Cloud's childhood home.

Aerith held him that day, whispering nonsense so that he would not have to think.

Fenrir did not reappear for weeks.

* * *

“I know that you're in love with him,” Aerith said.

The pity in her eyes made him want to fly into a blind rage. Some part of him thought that he even wanted to hurt her for it. And she would have let him.

“I love him too,” she said sadly.

* * *

One day, Fenrir stopped appearing at all.

Cloud went back to the black forest, now wielding a large blade for protection, in search of him. The forest was familiar to him now, and not nearly as frightening as it had been, the first time he wandered its woods.

“ _Fenrir!_ ”

His call echoed over the drooping black branches, shook the ravens from their perch, but no reply returned.

* * *

On the night before Aerith was to be wed to Zack, Ifalna awoke to see her daughter's bed empty.

From the window, she could see her, clad only in a white nightgown, barefoot in the moonlight, walking towards the black forest in steady, slow strides.

She spotted Zack's black mane in the fields running after her, calling out for her, to no avail. The girl did not even turn her head. 

The oil lamp held in Aerith's left arm swayed like a firefly in the night.

The first figure disappeared into the edge of the forest, and the second figure followed soon after.

Ifalna watched until the pinprick of light could no longer be seen. 

* * *

Aerith did not come back.

But Zack did.

No one had seen either of them for three days and three nights, ever since they had disappeared into the forest in pitch-black darkness. The entire village searched for them, in every crooked corner of the wooded land, but neither could be found.

Then, on the fourth day, Zack reappeared at their front door, unscathed.

His face looked bitter. “She changed her mind. She said that she didn't want me anymore. She ran away, just to be rid of me.”

Ifalna refused to believe that. But her daughter's bed remained empty and cold.

* * *

There was something different about Zack.

Small things, at first.

Cloud watched his friend in the glass mirror, making strange faces at himself. Grimacing, as if to examine his own teeth.

The drain in the bath quarters filled with more black hair than usual.

He awoke several nights to find Zack standing outside, wearing far too little for the cold winter air, staring up at the half moon in silence. 

One evening, he caught the sight of Zack consuming three slabs of raw mutton meat, the pink flesh and blood tinting the edges between his teeth.

The blue eyes that looked back at him stared eerily, hungrily.

* * *

“I have always wanted this,” Zack whispered to him. “I couldn’t admit it to myself then.”

His naked body pushed against Cloud's, his unfamiliar hand gripping his cock tightly, a thumb swiping over the head, back and forth.

Zack dripped oil onto him, into him, to ease the entry of their bodies becoming one.

Cloud tensed. “It hurts.”

Zack ignored him and continued to push.

He wondered if Zack really did want him, or if he was simply a means of consolation for his bitter parting with Aerith.

“Isn't this what you've always wanted too?” A mouth brushed against his skin.

Zack bit into his ear, drawing blood. It vanished between his lips with a lick.

It had been his fondest wish for years. To have his affection returned by this boy.

But not like this.

Zack took him roughly, brutally. His hands held down Cloud’s wrists as he whimpered and writhed. The pain ate through him in more ways than one.

The agony burned him. It made him gasp and struggle underneath Zack’s weight.

He shut his eyes and begged him to stop.

And Zack’s thrusts only became more violent.

“Don't fight me,” he whispered. “I’m just giving you what you want.”

As if the words contained some magic to compel him, Cloud’s body became limp and still.

Zack licked the tears off his cheeks afterwards, murmuring apologies as Cloud curled into a ball and sobbed.

* * *

Zack told him that he often misremembered things.

“Perhaps it's from all those times Elias hit your head,” he said carelessly, his eyes unfeeling and empty.

* * *

“Don't you miss Aerith too?”

Zack shrugged coldly at him.

“What happened, in the forest? You were gone for three days.”

Cloud felt a chill as Zack's eyes settled on his. He did not answer the question.

“You’re getting confused again,” Zack said, idly. 

The tone made him question himself.

* * *

That full moon, no livestock went missing.

“I love you so much,” Zack groaned. “You feel so good.”

The pleasure alternated with the pain, as Cloud was penetrated over and over.

“You take it so well. I should have done this to you years ago.”

Zack told him that it had only hurt so much because he had been a virgin. But it had not hurt any less, the fifth time, nor the three times prior to that.

Cloud had stopped resisting by then. He tried his best not to disappoint Zack. The look on his face after that first kiss, the one tattooed forever inside his mind, was one that he never wished to see again.

He basked in the praise of his lover, even when the pain would not subside.

* * *

It occurred to Cloud that he had not seen Fenrir at all during the last four seasons, and certainly not since Zack’s return.

“Come with me, Zack,” he said carefully. “I want to find Fenrir. I wish to see him again.”

“You’re wasting your time,” he replied. “But I’ll go with you.”

They fastened on dark cloaks, carrying twin blades, and walked once more into the black forest.

In the heart of the woods stood a cabin he had never seen before.

Trembling, he turned around to look at his lover.

“You’re not Zack, _are_ you?”

His beautiful blue eyes narrowed at him. “What are you talking about, Cloud?”

“What did you do with him?” he demanded. “Where is Aerith?” He gripped his blade tightly, even knowing that he was hopelessly outmatched in strength.

An amused expression lit his lover’s eyes.

“ _Who_ do you think I am?”

“It’s you, isn’t it, Fenrir? You’re a shapeshifter. A demon.” His voice was uneven and his heart pounded with fright inside his chest.

Zack laughed, in a way that he never used to laugh. Mockingly. “You think that I’m your stupid stray dog?”

Then his expression took on a more callous chill, and his voice filled with a low menace. “What you remember is the illusion. What I’ve shown you, is reality.”

He cupped Cloud’s cheek, stroking his face with a thumb.

“Do you really want to see the truth?”

* * *

Aerith’s dead body had been decomposing for the last month. The look of shock on her face had been frozen into her pale flesh. Her tongue hung out of her mouth, distended and unnaturally long. The bruises on her neck were shaped like handprints.

Zack held Cloud’s neck and pushed it down, so that he was facing Aerith’s rotting purple flesh and her permanent look of horror. The scent of her burned his nostrils.

“She said that she ignored the darkness in me for so long. That some part of her still loved me, but we couldn’t be together anymore.”

Cloud’s tears dripped onto her face, sliding down into her open mouth, where a worm wriggled.

“So I killed her.”

He pulled Cloud back up, his hand still clutching the back of his bruised neck. Zack wiped a tear away with his index finger, and placed it on the tip of his tongue, tasting the salt.

Cloud grieved for his friends. The one whom had died, and the one whom no longer existed. “You’re not the Zack I once knew," he whispered.

A contemptuous smile spread over his lips.

“Your stupid lap dog tried to stop me. But he's always known what I was, because it’s what _he_ is, too.”

He kissed Cloud hard on the mouth.

“Would you like to see him? The real him? I doubt you’ve ever seen his true form.”

Inside the cabin was a beautiful man with long silver hair, jade-green eyes, and a sorrowful look on his ethereal face. His naked form was caked in old blood, bound at the wrists and the ankles. He stank of sweat and fear.

Zack crouched down and held the man’s chin.

“You must be starving by now, aren’t you?”

“Fenrir,” Cloud whispered.

Fenrir, who had always protected him since the day they first met. Fenrir, whom he had confided in, when he had no one else. Fenrir, whom he had cast away, the moment someone new came into his life.

The wolf had never liked Zack. He had seen below the surface, when no one else did.

“My name is Sephiroth,” the man said, pain seeping into his strained voice.

“Are you hungry enough to eat the golden lamb? Should I have you kill him, or should I have him kill you?” Zack turned back to smile at Cloud, his teeth glistening and sharp. The sight set his nerves on fire and filled his heart with ice.

Fenrir’s - no, Sephiroth’s eyes - looked at him, then to the blade in his hand. His intention was clear.

He didn’t know if he could do it.

Zack’s gaze was as cold and bitter as the winter winds that blew through Nibelheim. “I always knew that you would betray me too, Cloud.”

And he sank the blade into the demon’s heart - his friend, his lover, his enemy - with a heartrending howl.

Regret filled both of their eyes, before Zack's body slumped lifelessly against his own.

Cloud wept.

* * *

“Please forgive me.”

Sephiroth held his face tenderly in his hands. It reminded him of all those fond gestures of comfort, when they were younger.

“I didn’t want him to torment you anymore. She was not supposed to be in the house that night.” His handsome face was twisted with guilt.

He thought of his mother, who had been afraid and weak, just like him. He thought of the abuse she had turned her eyes away from, had accepted upon both herself and her son.

And he forgave both of them.

* * *

_My own mother called me a monster. My own father took knives to my skin, to prove that I was not human underneath. I still bled like one._

_I was not allowed to play with the other children._

_My own kin drove me out of my home, after they saw the skins I shed. I lived thereafter in the forest on my own._

Sephiroth kissed him softly on the lips.

_And when I met you, I felt less alone._

Cloud returned his kiss, allowing their tongues to touch. The shapeshifter whispered into his ear.

“No one had ever been kind to me, before you. They were all afraid of me.” 

His silver hair lay silken against Cloud’s bare chest, sending a pleasant feeling through him. As the strands brushed over his nipples, he moaned.

Sephiroth waited many months, not touching him until Cloud was ready, not until he had ceased blaming himself for his grief and loss. He kissed his body slowly, gently, easing himself into him with care.

As he lay vulnerable and bare, there was only pleasure.

* * *

He had once wished that this wolf would stay with him forever.

Sephiroth drew a deep cut into his own tongue with a golden knife, and then pressed down onto his mouth with a bloody kiss.

As the thick copper sludge went down his throat, Cloud could feel himself changing from the inside.

“I was always a killer,” his lover said. “But I have only ever killed for you.”

He closed his eyes as Sephiroth smeared the blood on his chin with soft kisses, his thrusts filling him with endless pleasure.

As their coupling reached a crescendo, the shapeshifter’s bodily fluids filled him from both ends, red and white.

When Cloud opened his eyes next, they were the color of jade.

* * *

It was said that there lived a monster in the woods.

Evil came in all different shapes, not all of them distinct.

The monster did not always come from the woods.

Sometimes, it lived right next door.

  


**Author's Note:**

> The themes I aimed to explore in this piece were jealousy, shame, rejection, loneliness, and abusive relationships.
> 
> It started with the idea of wanting to write a fairytale with dark and horror undertones. For some reason, I felt like more alliteration was needed for this story.
> 
> I sort of expect people to _not_ enjoy this story, because it's full of dark unhappy shit. I hope it's still an interesting read, regardless.
> 
> I decided to de-anon one last work, which is a [non-graphic dark sefikura](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25178104). I guess I don't really care about writing problematic content anymore, though that one came from some personal thoughts that I didn't initially want to share. I enjoy exploring the extremes of good and bad in humanity through writing.
> 
> * * *
> 
> I'm sorry, Clack/Zerith fans, if you read this. I've rarely seen dark Zack written, and wanted to subvert expectations for the expected villain and expected hero of the story.
> 
> Particularly to highlight the theme that abusers are not always who you expect them to be, and may only reveal their insidious nature over time.
> 
> This was so dark for me to write that I actually wrote the [fluffiest clack fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25802395) I could come up with after to cope. So if I made you feel awful, take a break, and then read that if you like.
> 
> * * *
> 
> As always, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments. ❤️ I love just chatting about these characters, FF7, ideas, and writing, so don't be afraid to share your thoughts!
> 
> Kudos are always appreciated too.  
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> * * *
> 
> [Other stories.](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=creators%3A+anonymous+summary%3Akbd&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&commit=Sort+and+Filter&tag_id=Compilation+of+Final+Fantasy+VII)


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